Kitsune
by MyTigerNacho
Summary: Nobles, humans, and werewolves are not the only races in the world.


The world accelerates when there is danger. Or perhaps it is you who is moving in slow motion. No details register. No bigger picture is seen. Everything moves past your eyes so quickly, and you try to move, try to help, try to save. But no matter how hard you try, you are not fast enough.

Iel did not dream – she did not even sleep – but she had spent many days and nights among humans, and had heard them speak of their dreams, their nightmares. Like many aspects of human culture, it had fascinated her how a large number of humans, from a wide variety of places, dreamt of not being fast enough.

For the first time, she felt like she could relate.

"Go," she said, her voice full of confidence that she did not feel. She wanted to run and hide. She wanted to mourn. She wanted to cry and hug each one of them. She wished she could tell them that they had nothing to fear and that they need not cry. They were only children, after all. But that was not her job. Right now, her job was to project the authority of the Royal Family. She looked at the only adult in the group, the Elder, who had served her and her family for millennia. "Take care of them," she instructed. The Elder nodded and bowed. "You have provided a valuable service to my family." The children would think she was referring to the order the Elder was carrying out now, but the Elder was wise. She would know that Iel was saying farewell.

Iel smiled encouragingly as the scared little faces disappeared into the cavern underneath the palace. She waited a few moments, feeling their energies retreat to a safe distance, then slammed her palms onto the ice at the entrance, causing it to collapse. She did not want anyone to discover the escape route.

She leapt over a body (her sister, someone she had grown up with and she had been so _strong_ , but there had been too _many_ of them) into the sky and looked down at the icy glacier that was her homeland.

The once-magnificent island had been destroyed. Large portions of the ice had been fractured from the main body, and much more had entered into the air around them, heated to the extreme by the energy of the attacks. The beautiful blue-white of the ice had been stained red.

So many dead.

And so many enemies filled the battleground around her.

But someone had to buy the others time. And she was the only Guardian able to fight. She would die here, like her sisters, like her mother and father. But by dying she might perhaps save the children, and all that was left of her people.

The enemy was on her tail. She continued her flight through the air, leading them away from the children. With any luck they would think her urgency and direction was simply an escape attempt, not a distraction.

She hesitated. Should she lead them completely away from the glacier? Or stay within its boundaries?

The decision was made for her. At the far end of the glacier she descended to the ground. They were in front of her now, as well as behind. She wouldn't be able to fight her way through them.

They circled around her, claws and teeth bared. They were confident. There was over a hundred of them left. And only one of her.

She prepared to die.

A single werewolf walked toward her, entering into the rough circle the others had formed around her. He was quite large, with shaggy brown fur and grey eyes. And sharp claws dyed red. He dropped his transformation as he entered, arms spread slightly.

Iel did not move. Not even an ear twitched. The tension of battle did not leave her.

"Surrender," he commanded in a common tongue. "If you do so, my people will not harm you. You will live."

Iel did not take her eyes off of him. Really?

She would live?

But it couldn't be that easy. Right?

"And if I do surrender, what _will_ you do to me?" She hated how her voice shook.

"Does it matter? You will be alive."

What an… evasive answer. Her mother used to speak like that. As did Murion. And then he had betrayed them all. Her eyes began to sting with unshed tears as she thought of all those who had died.

Her people feared death. They had no undying part. When they died, their energy became other energy, and they were no more.

Iel was no different from her people. Death scared her.

She straightened, tension leaving her. She smiled at the werewolf and walked toward him, until there was only a few feet between them.

Her head bowed. Her ears flattened against her head. Her eyes closed.

And she summoned all eight of her tails.

She pulled energy out of the air, steam solidifying and raining down as ice as she did so. The energy glowed black, the same color as her fur, as she forced the energy through the body of the werewolf in front of her. He was their leader. He should take responsibility for his actions.

The enraged roars of the werewolves around her meant nothing. They would all die soon enough. She no longer felt she had anything to lose.

For it was no longer her own death that scared her. Her own death meant nothing, _nothing_ , compared to the death that surrounded her. Her own fear meant _nothing_ compared to the fear her entire people had felt as they died.

There were still so many of them, too many for her to fight individually. She would have to take them out with one attack. Normally she would not have been able to do this. Her smile widened. It was incredible how your options increased when you know longer have to take into account your own life. She threw up a spherical barrier of her own energy around her.

She began gathering every last drop of energy she could. And then she kept gathering. It was suicide of course. Their bodies could not handle it. Or perhaps it was a way to deter the greedy. But everyone knew, from the time they were children, that when a kitsune gathered more power than they could maintain control over, the power leaves the body with an explosive force.

She could feel the power building, trying to escape, but she held on. The more power she could gather, the larger the explosion would be. She could feel the attacks hitting her barrier, but it held.

Pain began building in her head, her back. Twinges at first, but quickly growing. It was making it hard to concentrate.

She fell to one knee, gasping as the energy felt like a hot ball of fire within her body. It burned so badly. She cried out. But she did not release it, not yet. Not yet.

As the pain became unbearable, setting each one of her nerves on fire, she relented. With a scream she allowed the energy to flow out of her to her surroundings. The resulting explosion was blinding white.

She could not see. She could feel herself growing cold, falling, sinking.

Dying.

 _This_ is what she'd been afraid of?

She almost laughed at herself.


End file.
